Thursday, March 28, 2013

Analysis finds warming leads to less extreme storms

Highlights of a new SPPI analysis, STORM TRENDS ACROSS THE NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN:

One of the projected consequences of CO2-induced global warming is an increase in all types of extreme weather, including storms. A good test of the validity of this hypothesis comes from evaluating trends in storminess over the period of time when the Earth was recovering from the global chill of the Little Ice Age and transiting into the Current Warm Period, when the world's climate alarmists contend the planet experienced a warming that was unprecedented over the prior one to two millennia. In the present section, these claims are evaluated as they pertain to storms over of the North Atlantic Ocean.

The global warming that occurred between 1951 and 2006 did not lead to an increasing trend in the extremeness of East Coast Winter Storms. There is little evidence that the mid- to late nineteenth century was less stormy than the present, and there is no sign of a sustained enhanced storminess signal associated with 'global warming'.

Such a finding, in the words of the researchers, "lends a cautionary note to those who suggest that anthropogenic greenhouse warming probably results in enhanced extratropical storminess, as this is indicated neither by our own nor existing published observational results for the northeast Atlantic for the last ~150 years."

It is clear that relative coolness, as opposed to relative warmth, typically leads to more extreme storms, which is just the opposite of what the world's climate alarmists continue to contend. Given the findings noted by Trouet et al., as well as those reported by other researchers that are described in this summary and for this particular portion of the planet, it is clear that relative coolness, as opposed to relative warmth, typically leads to more extreme storms, which is just the opposite of what the world's climate alarmists continue to contend.

This could have been predicted. Both the air and ocean circulations are drven by the temperature difference between the poles and the equator. Global warming reduces that difference, so the intensity of the flows is reduced.